When a Company Takes its Eye Off the Ball

What can you do to get back on track? The first thing you need to learn is to listen to your customer champions in the service department. This will be a tougher year if you’re not willing to do that. They know what’s going on and what you need to do to to stay close to your customers.

A company takes its eye off the ball when it stops listening to customers and considers the customer service group a cost. You may already know it - customer service is such a large part of marketing that it makes sense to refocus your efforts. Some other areas to look at are:

Setting the tone from the top. Let’s face it, everyone takes their cues from what people do and less and less from what they say. Make your communications program a robust one, where everyone is seen doing the right thing and you’ll need to worry less about policies and rules.

Communicating more frequently and less formally. This does not mean that you’re not taking it less seriously, quite the opposite. It might inject a good dose of accountability and enthusiasm in your team when they know this is a regular appointment.

Embracing your communities. Sometimes a business gets lucky and communities form around it. The best way to approach that is to be a willing participant and not try to message or control the community.

Measuring what closes and not just numbers. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a really good idea to have leads. But perhaps the approach should be more about talking with the people who already want to speak with you, than focusing most of your time on generating new leads.

When there is little money to go around and many options, the companies that win are those who keep customers front and center.